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Been away for about a week now, but should be getting back in town tomorrow. Went to upstate New York (near Albany) for a few days, then went to NYC, and now I'm in Philly. Got to visit my buddies from Newgrounds to check out their new building, and let me just say that photos do that place no justice at all. It's going to be such an awesome place once they're done remodeling it 'n what not. Also enjoyed a gargantuan Philly cheesesteak today (I don't care what anybody says, they're just not anywhere near as good in other states). Earlier this afternoon we went to check out the Body Worlds exhibit at the Franklin Institute here in Philly. If you have the chance, you really should check it out. Gunther Von Hagen's body of work is pretty goddamned amazing. Tonight I think we're going to some glow-in-the-dark bowling alley 'n video game place, should be nifty.

Oh yeah, I'm also a year older now. Hooray o.O

Anyway, that's all for now. Expect some new material on the site next week, including a fairly big announcement/teaser.

Wanted to have a little bit o' extra fun on the forums this holiday season. Normally, everybody just posts a picture of what they got after xmas, but this year I figured we could hold our own "Secret Santa" forum event. The rules were fairly simple, if you signed up to participate, you would be assigned one person to send a gift to (the gift could not exceed $10.00) and then another person on the forums would have to send you a gift. Once a person receives their gift(s), they are required to post photos of themselves using the gifts... preferably telling a story of some sort. Just about everyone has sent out their gifts by now and people are starting to finally receive them. A few really amusing photo stories have already been posted.

Be sure to keep an eye on that thread as there will surely be more funny photos collections getting posted over the next week or so! If you missed the chance to sign up this year, we'll be doing it again next December for sure, so hopefully you can join in the fun then.

The holidays are always a crazy time for me each year. Of course, I have to do all my xmas shopping for everybody, and that usually requires going out to a bunch of overcrowded stores in mid-December. Granted, I did get a decent amount of shopping done online this year (hooray for free shipping offers!), but still there's always a few people that I just have to go find gifts for in the real world. Ah well, most of my shopping is done now, so hopefully I won't have to leave my house any more this month except for food.

The other thing in December is that it's when I was born. Yep, I'm one of those lucky individuals whose birthday is the day after xmas. I always find it amusing that whenever I tell anybody when I was born, they always react with pity. "You were born on the 26th? Damn, my condolences man. You know, if you need someone to talk to, I'm always here..." It's not quite as bad as some people make it out to be, but there is of course the combining of the gifts. Sure, it doesn't happen with everybody, but you'll still get the occasional "This gift is your xmas AND your birthday present!" Not that I'm complaining really... hell, I consider myself fortunate to get any gifts at all. And speaking of gifts, check out this watch...

Fossil has just released several limited edition classic Atari game watches, including Asteroids, Centipede and Breakout. You can't play the games on the watches, but the animations are pretty cool and the watches themselves are nice. You can see a sample of the animations here. Reminds me of those old game watches back in the day, only these new ones aren't cheap plastic pieces of crap. That Asteroids one is going right up on my Amazon Wish List (how was that for an absolutely shameless plug, eh?).

So anyway, what do you want for xmas this year? Have any one gift you want more than anything? I would've added a private island to my wish list, but apparently Amazon.com doesn't sell private islands. That's too bad too, cuz I'm sure one of you would've bought it for me... right?

Well it snowed here the other day. As always, people here in Virginia overreacted to it by driving about 3mph on the highways even though the roads had already been salted in advance and nothing was sticking. It was definitely fun scraping off the car though. I managed to get the very last ice scraper in stock from CVS. I even saw a guy walk over to the ice scraper box shortly after and he looked pretty pissed that they were all gone. I hid mine from his view. You never can be too careful during the holiday season... shoppers attack at will. Well anyway, driving annoyances aside, the snow at least looked nice.

While I was out picking up my ice scraper, I discovered a holiday gag from an unlikely source: Matchbox. Famous for their die-cast toy cars, you wouldn't think the people at Matchbox would be looking to piss off kids, but damned if they aren't trying their hardest this year. Behold!

Yep, this year they're selling stocking stuffers "for kids who are naughty... from parents who are nice" in the form of Coal Cars. Simply put, the coal cars are supposed to look like a giant lump of coal, but hidden inside is a matchbox car. Yeah, that'll teach those kids for being naughty.

Well it definitely looks like a big lump of coal... or a raisin. Hmmm yeah, a huge friggin' raisin. Well either way, whether the naughty kid thinks it's a lump of coal or a huge raisin, the little bastard will surely feel disappointed upon his or her first look at it. I suppose we should see what toy surprise is inside...

Hey! Maybe this really is a mean-spirited prank after all! What better way to get your naughty kid the message to shape up than with a dump truck toy? "You see little Johnny, if you don't shape up and start behaving, this is the kind of career you can look forward too!" Excellent.